The sun of the new day finally broke over the ridges surrounding the village of Pojin. For those still breathing, the light was not a mercy. It served only to reveal the true horror of a war that the darkness of the previous night had mercifully hidden. The catastrophic scale of the slaughter was now laid bare under a clear, indifferent sky.
The cloying, rotting smell of flesh—human and animal alike—had completely conquered the crisp, fresh scent of mountain pine. Where there once was the fragrance of life and high-altitude growth, there was now only the heavy, sweet stench of decay.
Even the earth itself seemed to have turned against the living. The morning dew, which normally clung to the grass like clear, shimmering diamonds, was dark red and viscous. It didn't refresh the land; it stained it, marking the dirt of Pojin with the permanent signature of its horror. Each step taken by the Razaasia sentries sent ripples through these crimson puddles, a reminder that the ground they walked upon was soaked in the lifeblood of the East.
As the mist burned off, the jagged silhouettes of the "Three Piles" in the village square became agonizingly clear. Drystan moved with a heavy, limping gait toward the mouth of the Salran Pass. His hands were bound tightly, the coarse rope leading to the fist of Koorush, who rode just ahead. The teenager he had tried to save walked beside him, her eyes vacant with shock, her steps mechanical. Behind them followed the core of the betrayal: Dzhambul and his high-ranking turncoats, flanked by a disciplined guard of Razaasia silk-clad soldiers.
As they approached the foot of Salran Hill, the procession grew. From the side alleys and ruined huts, more Razaasia units merged into the line, each group shoving a cluster of villagers—the very old, the very young, and the wounded—at spearpoint.
It was only then, as the shadow of the mountain fell over them, that Drystan finally understood the depth of the depravity. He and these terrified civilians were not just prisoners; they were Koorush's living shield.
Drystan looked up at the high, jagged ridges of the pass. This section of the hill had not yet been touched by General Leej's catapults. He knew that somewhere above them, hidden in the crevices and stone nests, Behrouz and his elite archers were watching. They were waiting for the perfect opportunity to rain fire down on Koorush and end this invasion in a single volley.
But they wouldn't. Not as long as their own brothers, sisters, and their legendary Captain were the first things the arrows would hit.
The silence of the pass was deafening. Drystan knew he had to act. If they crossed the threshold of the pass as a shield, the mountain's defenses would remain frozen, allowing the Razaasia army to march straight into the heart of the East. He had to give Behrouz an opening—even if it cost him his life.
He shifted his gaze, scanning the line of prisoners. His eyes met those of Buqa and Dolgoon, Chinua's two spies. Drystan stared hard at them, then made a subtle, sharp movement with his bound wrists.
No words were whispered. No signals were shouted. But in the cold, red light of the morning, the soldiers of the East shared a single, final thought: Freedom or the Grave.
As they reached the narrowest throat before the pass, Koorush came to a sudden halt. He turned back to Dzhambul with a thin, hidden smile—the kind of look a wolf gives a trapped lamb. He stretched out his arm, offering the rough hemp rope that bound Drystan's wrists.
"Here," Koorush said, his voice dripping with mock respect. "You should take the lead. You are still a Prince of Hmagol, after all." He leaned in closer, his smile widening. "Maybe Behrouz will hesitate to shoot his own royalty. Or perhaps he simply won't want to be the one who kills the man holding the 'Golden Captain's' leash."
Dzhambul took the rope. The weight of it felt heavier than any sword. Behind them, Drystan's eyes burned with a silent, royal fury. He wasn't just a prisoner anymore; he was a witness to the final desecration of the Hmagoli throne.
High above, perched on the jagged limestone teeth of Salran Hill, Chief Behrouz and his elite scouts held their breath. They had spent the morning listening to the distant thunder of General Leej's catapults shattering the other side of the pass, but here, at the foot of the hill, the air was eerily still.
As the morning rays spread across the valley, the light caught a shock of radiant, golden hair. It was Drystan, leading a procession that looked more like a funeral march than a military advance. Surrounding him was a sea of familiar faces—the elders who had told stories by the fire, the children who played in the village square, and the neighbors who had shared their harvests.
"Chief," a young bandit whispered, his bow trembling in his grip. His voice was brittle, cracking under the weight of the morning light. "I... I think I see my mother down there."
Behrouz turned to the young man. He saw the brave mask of a warrior slipping, revealing the frightened, scarred face of a son. The "Mountain's Tooth" was primed—the heavy stone traps were ready to be released—but the finger on the lever was paralyzed by love.
Behrouz reached out, his hand heavy and steady as he tapped the young man's shoulder. He let out a long, ragged sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the entire mountain.
"I know, son. I see mine too," Behrouz said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. He didn't look away from the line of prisoners. He stared at the golden-haired Captain and the shadows—Buqa and Dolgoon—moving within the enemy's ranks. "But you know the law of the Pass. Once they are in the hands of our enemy, they are just dead people walking."
Behrouz gripped his own bow, his knuckles white. He was preparing his men for the unthinkable: to fire upon their own kin to prevent Dzhambul and his men from breaching the heart of the East. He was waiting for a sign—any sign—that would justify the sacrifice.
Below, Drystan continued to march. He was in full awareness that the moment they entered the shadow of the cliffs, the soldiers he once trained would be forced to fire. They would all die—villagers and invaders alike—pulverized by the mountain's grace. But as he looked at the trembling hands of children clutching their mothers' tunics, children who couldn't even fathom the concept of death, Drystan's heart hardened. He refused to accept that their light should be extinguished for one man's hollow greed.
His eyes met Buqa and Dolgoon's. In that single, electric spark of eye contact, the order was given.
Drystan gathered every ounce of strength—of royal pride and jagged anger—and strained against his bonds. The rope snapped, frayed fibers flying into the air like dry straw. With a roar, he launched forward, his fist aimed like a siege hammer at Dzhambul's back. But Dzhambul, a man forged in decades of betrayal and war, sensed the shift in the air. He spun with lethal fluidity, his sword whistling through the air in a horizontal arc aimed directly at Drystan's throat.
The chaos spread like wildfire. Dolgoon moved with the precision of a master assassin. His sword swung backward in a blind, practiced arc, severing the throat of the soldier behind him. Without even looking, he snatched the dying man's spear and hurled it through the air toward Drystan. In the same motion, he leaped forward, a heavy kick sending a guard sprawling and loosening the grip on a group of terrified hostages.
On the other flank, Buqa drove his elbow into Altan's ribs. Even through the heavy metal plates, the sheer force of the blow sent Altan staggering into the soldiers on his right, breaking their formation. Buqa didn't stop to admire his work; he launched himself at Lixin and Ehri. He knew that by threatening the high-value conspirators, he would force their personal guards to abandon the villagers to protect their masters, buying Dolgoon the precious seconds he needed to free the rest of the line.
Drystan arched backward, the cold wind of Dzhambul's blade grazing his skin. In that inverted moment, he caught a glimpse of the flying spear Dolgoon had thrown. With a desperate, acrobatic kick, his feet snagged the shaft in mid-air. He landed low, his boots skidding in the red-stained dirt, and spun. The spear became a blur of wood and steel as he caught it mid-rotation, the momentum of his spin adding weight to the weapon.
Dzhambul scrambled backward, his eyes widening as the tip of the spinning spear whistled inches from his chest. The "Golden Captain" was no longer a prisoner—he was the mountain's vengeance personified.
From the heights of the jagged ridges, Behrouz stood like a statue, his hand raised high in the freezing mountain air. His eyes were locked on the chaos below, searching for a single heartbeat of an opening. Just when he feared the mountain would become a mass grave for his people, the impossible happened.
The palace guards, panicked by the sudden ferocity of the breakout, abandoned their positions over the hostages. They rushed toward a single, blurred figure—Buqa—who had charged into the very heart of the enemy formation. He was a lone spark in a sea of shadow, providing the archers above with the one thing they needed: a clear, visible target to anchor their aim.
"The arrow follows him!" Behrouz's voice roared, his hand snapping down with the force of a falling axe.
In an instant, the silence of the Salran Pass was annihilated. The air hissed as a thousand voices of the mountain—the feathered shafts of the Hmagoli archers—whistled down in a lethal, coordinated rain. The arrows traced the path of Buqa's charge, stitching a line of death through the palace guards ranks.
Below, the "Shield" shattered into a thousand fleeing fragments. Mothers scooped up their children and sprinted toward the safety of the treeline, knowing that once they reached the roots of the pines, the hidden traps of the mountain would act as their guardian. But not everyone ran.
The fathers, the elders, and the mothers whose children were already safe turned back. They grabbed discarded spears, jagged rocks, and broken shields. They didn't fight for victory; they fought for time. They traded their lives in a desperate, final stand to protect the backs of the fleeing, while the sky above continued to weep iron.
Amidst the screaming and the whistling of arrows, the villagers worked in a frantic, bloody harmony—some freeing those still bound, others standing as human walls against the palace guards' blades, all while the mountain itself seemed to be fighting alongside them.
Drystan stood over the panting Dzhambul, his spear tip trembling inches from the traitor's throat. Around them, the last of the Hmagoli villagers vanished into the safety of the dark pines. For one brief, shimmering heartbeat, victory felt like a tangible thing—a debt paid in full for the fires of Pojin.
Then, the world screamed.
A thunderous, grinding roar drowned out the sounds of the melee. Drystan's head snapped upward as the very sky seemed to tilt. High above, the eastern face of Salran Hill—pulverized by hours of General Leej's relentless bombardment—finally gave way.
A jagged shelf of limestone, the size of a cathedral, sheared off from the mountain. It fell with a slow, sickening grace, blotting out the sun. The shadow swept over the pass like a shroud.
"FALL BACK!" Drystan tried to roar, but his voice was swallowed by the impact.
The mountain hit the earth with the force of a falling star. The shockwave sent Drystan and Dzhambul flying into the dust, and the screams of the dying were cut short by the crushing weight of the earth. But the stone wasn't the only thing falling.
Soldiers from the upper ridges—both Razaasia invaders, palace guards, and the brave Hmagoli bandits—were shaken loose like autumn leaves. They fell through the dust-choked air, their bodies trailing through the sky like falling comets, crashing onto the living soldiers below.
As the dust rose into a black wall, the Salran Pass was gone. There were only the sound of shifting rubble and the heavy, rhythmic thud of General Leej's heavy infantry marching toward the ruin.
Drystan lay pinned under the weight of a broken shield, his vision blurring. The "Red Morning" had ended, and in its place, a long, dark winter was beginning.